Jesus Christ. How does Blizzard not know how to reward effort? Stop making damn ugly recolors that you can find anywhere - might as well just give a horse for the 1000 mount already if effort doesn’t seem to be a factor in this equation.
So disappointing.
A lot of players just said that the reward doesn’t come from a challenge or something behind effort, but from those 500 mounts there’s a lot that players collect doing all the vicious mounts in arenas, all the covenant rewards, the mage tower mount, glory of achievements… That’s why Blizzard should also add rewards for 600-700, so the most dedicated collectors that do all possible content when it’s current could show off that mount for a while and then move to the next goal.
Obviously the mount achievements reflect effort at some point you can’t get there only with easy mounts.
I truely do not understand everyones poor choices in sabotaging the 500 mount achievement for the people that clearly have a passion for mounts and want to feel rewarded for the time and efforts on their collection journeys rather than being absolutely shat on by a recolour that has about as much thought put into it as the yeti. Rather than people who don’t care about mounts replying to this and giving absolute nonsense as feedback, how about they keep it to them selves, we are already getting multiple otter mounts so how about we keep it that way and let the people who don’t want the otter, get the real deal, proper non re colour mount that they truly deserve. Imagine investing so many hours, countless attempts for rare mounts to add to your collection just to reach the 500 achievement and go “wow I now mid way through dragon flight have 5 of this thing, lucky me…” This is an expansion filled with dragons, loads and loads of new dragon models are poring out left right and centre, how about instead of giving us a garbage reskin of a soon to be existing ground mount, you put as much thought into it as you would a store mount and give us a unique model dragon at least.
Say it how it is
I don’t think there’s ever been a unique mount collection reward mount 
Every single one is a recolor of something else
Exactly and that’s the feedback that a part of the community provided, So we can see changes on that philosophy and add new flavor to the game.
Just because something was designed for years with X pattern, it doesn’t mean that can’t be improve or subject to feedback.
Personally I think they’re afraid of the backlash non-collector players will cause at the idea of a unique mount they can’t have
I still think they should do it anyway though
It is a big milestone and should reflect that.
I remember when …
I dinged 100 mounts and got the blue dragonhawk mount, a flyer. I parked at the Argent Tournament just to show off! I knew that I was one of the firsts and was mighty proud to show of my big achievement mount.
I think the same that’s why Devs just pick recolors, I think an unique reward could promote collecting but that’s my personal opinion.
Also, if they’re going to do recolors, usually it’s better to use a mount with outstanding recolors.
Give us a recolor of that flying book at the mage tower.
Yeah, that’d work for me.
that would make the book no longer unique and make the book seem slightly less cool considering it was really hard to achieve
So you’re just going to conveniently ignore that every single one of the collector mounts have been recolours of existing ones?
Oh and bonus, no one knows if the brown version will even be attainable yet. It exists as a placeholder within the current alpha build, meaning that it could be pulled completely from the game in the next build, and no one knows how it will be attainable. So it could be something earned by reputation farming, or by doing a challenging achievement, or as a rare drop by killing a dungeon/raid boss…
No one knows!
So how about instead of whinging when you don’t know all the facts, you dial it back a couple of notches and wait until more information is available about where the other recolours of that mount come from, if they’re even going to be implemented at all.
I still remember the Legion alpha and seeing people react to the infernal mount that was added as the mount collector reward there. There were 4 other colour variants of that exact mount in the alpha build that added it. Only two of them actually made it into the game (one as a reward for killing Gul’dan on normal/heroic and another for killing Gul’dan on mythic difficulty) and the other two weren’t added to the game at all. They’re still in the game files, but you can’t obtain them at all.
I have never said that the collectors mounts weren’t recolors. Nice strawman you’re trying to construct there. What I’ve said is that 500 mounts is a milestone achievement and should be rewarded as such. My suggestion is to use one of the contest mounts since three have already been used. For a monumental achievement I think that would be fair. A drab recolor of an otter is not exciting. But since you brought up the collector mounts, lets take a look at those shall we?
The albino drake was unique in it’s color scheme since there isn’t a “albino” dragonflight, similar to how the Black and Plagued Protodrake stood out due to coloring. The Red/Blue (and armored version) dragonhawks, while not visually stunning, were unique in that they offered Horde and Alliance versions. The Jade Pandaren Kite only shares the model with one other kite that is a rep reward so fairly unique. The felfire hawk and frienzied feltalon are a brilliant fel green and only share a model with raid/dungeon drops or meta achievements (and one really hard to get rare spawn). The Frostshard Infernal only shares a model with the drops off Gul’dan in Nighthold, and is visually distinct with it blue fire.
Now most of these share models with hard to get mounts or are visually stunning, or both. In the case of the Dragonhawks they are faction specific colors so there’s a level of uniqueness to them. Now for arguments sake lets say we have to (we don’t) use a recolor? There are tons of visually eye catching recolors that are in game files that could be used. Myself, I’d like to see Blizzard break with tradition and give us something unique. As I’ve stated before, I’d love more unique mounts in every facet of the game and less recolors over all. I think the 500 mount milestone achievement would be a good place to implement something unique. After all, Blizzard is all about listing to their playerbase these days and reevaluating their “philosophies.” So for collectors, this is the place to start.
And you’re right, we don’t know if the brown otter version will be in the game. However, let me play my Uno reverse card! We also don’t know if Blizz will add even MORE otter mounts to the game, cheapening this current 500 mount further. Honestly I’d even be ok with the 500 mount otter if they slapped some dragon themed armor on it instead of the bone as it would at least be distinct and unique in it’s look.
No one knows!
And just because someone expresses their displeasure at a choice Blizzard made doesn’t mean they are “whinging.” So instead of coming in here hot and ready for action, maybe take a step back and try to empathize with those of us who are unhappy. I know I’m asking a lot, and for people like you who live on the forums, I’m sure the cynicism has set in. You’ve seen it all on these boards and I can understand how that can make someone be completely intractable on their opinion. Some of us want more than a drab recolor, even if it is a new model being introduced. If you can’t understand that, or refuse to even try to empathize with those of us who want Blizzard to do better, then there’s no further use discussing it with you. You have your opinion, and I have mine.
I won’t recommend you replying to that kind of comments, it’s not like the infernals were on the mount journal compared to the Otters…also the current black Otter doesn’t provide that impact compared to other mounts as you mentioned, As mentioned before, the idea of feedback is that Blizzard changes that kind of recolor philosophy behind the goals.
Exactly, 
What a horrible 500 achievement mount. Makes me want to stop collecting. They really don’t seem to care about mount achievements.
i agree, it should be some species of insect for sure 
Hopefully if enough players express their displeasure at the choice for the milestone reward Blizzard will take another look at it and give collectors something worthy of 500 mounts collected. And the Otter that is currently the reward can be moved to either the 450 or 550 reward since neither of those achievements have been made yet.
Great post all true, 100% support!
its a shame really because I think getting into an MMO you kind of expect to be behind the curve and see things that will be awesome that will take alot to unlock and they are kind of ruining that with worry problems
Worldpvp, IMO Devs worry too much for the players in a bad way and they don’t even ask players, the mount was changed from 1 alpha build to another when they’ve months before launch. There’s plenty of time to check with the general playerbase or the community council, however they just followed the same old ideas instead of looking for improvement and just change it from an “ugly already used model” Yeti to the “new cute mode” Otter.
It’s the same issue that we already had during SL with Covenants, Conduit all over again, Devs tought that it was bad for the game that players could change powers all the time and also they want to set restrictions to WFR, that kind of approach without checking feedback properly damaged the game for a long time now.
The sad part is that cosmetic issues doesn’t have the same noise from playerbase on forums and other place where Devs check compared to player power and gameplay, I still think that more unique rewards, improvements to old systems like pvp prestige honor, new mount achievements besides 500-550-600…etc could engage more players, also checking issues with collecting mounts like checking drop rates, bad luck mechanics…etc moving forward. SL had some rares with the same mount in a vendor as bad luck mechanic, Love rocket will have an update next year…there’s place for improvements.